April 09, 2012 10:54 p.m. | Developer Andrew Petzold made his case to the Mequon Plan Commission for a third restaurant at a strip mall now under construction on North Port Washington Road., persuading commissioners to allow a TCBY store in addition to the previously approved Taco Bell and Jimmy John's Gourmet Sandwiches.

The addition of the TCBY, which sells frozen yogurt, sundaes, smoothies, beverages and other frozen treats, could cause a parking crunch at the site.

There are 75 parking spaces and using the city's estimates for parking, the three eateries need 78 spaces. Community Development staff recommended the commission deny the conditional use permit Petzold needed for the restaurant, but the commission decided to ignore the recommendation.

There are four vacant, yet-to-be-leased spaces remaining in the 12,000 square foot building. Assistant Community Development Director Jac Zader said that permitted uses for the remaining spaces include professional offices, retail space or salons. Restaurants are conditional permitted uses and require Plan Commission approval. Permitted uses do not require a Plan Commission review and approval.

Petzold argued that more than 50 percent of customers pick up their food rather than eat at restaurants and because of that, less parking is needed.

Aug. 01, 2015 6:38 p.m. | Police say a 28-year-old Milwaukee man stole a Porsche automobile at gunpoint from a Concours Motors employee while on a test ride Saturday afternoon, setting off a police chase that ended with a Glendale officer and the suspect exchanging gunfire.

Both men sustained minor wounds.

Just before 1 p.m., Glendale police received a call about an armed carjacking in the 6400 block of N. Green Bay Ave. near W. Mill Road, Glendale Police Chief Thomas Czarnyszka said. After the suspect threatened the Concours Motors employee, the employee exited the vehicle, and the suspect drove down Good Hope Road toward I-43 at a high rate of speed.

The Glendale officer took up position to apprehend the vehicle near I-43 and Hampton Ave. and followed it down the freeway. The officer tried to stop the vehicle after it exited at Green Bay and Capitol Drive, and a chase ensued.

At N. 14th St. and W. Burleigh St., the suspect crashed the Porsche into a parked vehicle and fled on foot to the nearby Columbia Playground.

July 31, 2015 2:58 p.m. | Shorewood — Tochi - Shorewood's popular ramen restaurant - will be closing on Aug. 16 and relocating to West Bend, according to the company's Facebook page.

"With this move we will no longer operate the Shorewood location," the restaurant wrote on Facebook. "However, we will look to expand from our West Bend location and maybe back to Milwaukee...sooner than you think."

Dimitrijevic will continue serving as 4th district supervisor representing the Bay View area on Milwaukee's south side.

Lipscomb, 39, defeated Willie Johnson Jr. on a first-round ballot vote of 12-5. Though Michael Mayo Sr. had announced his candidacy for the post, he withdrew his name from consideration prior to the vote.

Lipscomb will complete Dimitrijevic's term as chair that ends in April.

After his election as chair, Lipscomb said it was important that the board continue to enhance the quality of life in Milwaukee County, especially by improving parks, transit and other critical safety net services provided by the county.

But in the end, this was an offer that Zortman could not refuse as the former four-year head coach at Shorewood/Messmer, author of the Greyhounds' resurrection and return to respectability, has returned to Homestead as the Highlanders' offensive coordinator and a math instructor at the high school.

Zortman spent 13 years at Homestead earlier in his career, serving as the girls basketball coach and working on Keel's staff for about a decade in many capacities until he took the Shorewood/Messmer job four years ago. He split his teaching time between both Messmer and Shorewood and also successfully led the boys golf team at Shorewood the last couple of years.

He accepted the position at Homestead earlier this month.

In keeping with "The Godfather" theme, Zortman did say this was indeed all about family. His wife Jen is also a math instructor at Homestead, and their children go to school in the district. He said he had been in conversations with Shorewood Athletic Director Levar Ridgeway months in advance, keeping him in the loop about a potential career change.

July 29, 2015 11:43 a.m. | The Nicolet baseball team is still not back to where it was 10 years ago or even five years ago, but the Knights made strides this summer, staying competitive for the most part in a 9-21 campaign.

"We had a lot of individual successes and improvements," said coach Jason Grodsky. "We didn't have a winning record, but we had many players pushing toward making themselves better, trying to eliminate mistakes and trying to show the way for the younger players. It all contributed to a better team effort in the end."

The Knights' season came to a tough end with a 5-4 WIAA regional semifinal defeat at the hands of Kewaskum on July 14.

By far the single-best high point of the campaign was the Knights' remarkable 5-3 upset of North Shore Conference champion West Bend West on June 29. It was one of only three losses for the Spartans this season.

In that game, senior Ian Greenfield pitched effectively and with composure. It was one reason behind his winning the team's Most Improved award and sharing the Knights' Lance Painter Top Pitcher award with fellow senior Alex Braun.

July 29, 2015 11:23 a.m. | With huge graduation losses from last season to absorb, Shorewood baseball coach Josh Lemke knew it would be an uphill climb this summer, but he was happy with the character and tenacity his team showed in an otherwise difficult 5-21 campaign.

Lemke thought his squad showed its true character in its final game, a tough 3-1 defeat at the hands of eventual WIAA sectional finalist Grafton in a regional semifinal game on July 14.

"Grafton was a very good team, and we played with them, hung with them well," Lemke said. "It showed that if played sound fundamental baseball that we could compete with anybody."

That game was the second sound contest the Greyhounds had played in a week following a 4-0 defeat at the hands of New Berlin Eisenhower in the Woodland Conference tournament on July 7.

Lemke and Shorewood played the summer with only two seniors, pitcher/outfielder/first baseman Joe Franke and all-purpose ace Will Rhodes (he played every position). Everywhere else, the team was young, young, young. Lemke noted that at the power positions of catcher, first base, shortstop and center field, the regular starters were all sophomores or younger.

July 29, 2015 11:10 a.m. | Whitefish Bay —Two months after Kristen Caves was struck and killed in a Whitefish Bay crosswalk, a new bench erected near the scene of the crash will serve as a tribute to her life and remind passersby of the importance of pedestrian safety.

Caves, 26, of Menomonee Falls, was struck and killed by a car on May 26 while attempting to cross Silver Spring Drive just east of Berkeley Boulevard. The driver of the car apparently waved her across the crosswalk, but when that car was hit from behind, the driver accidentally stepped on the gas pedal and hit Caves. She died two days later.

Caves' death has been difficult on her friends, family and her coworkers at Teklynx International, 409 E. Silver Spring Drive. Several of the employees in the second-story office heard or saw the crash, which only added to the trauma of her death.

"It was a reminder of how fragile life is, and how important your friends and family are," said Laura Henderson, the former general manager at Teklynx.

A graduate of Arrowhead High School, Caves had been working at Teklynk for nearly a year while pursuing an associate's degree at Waukesha County Technical College. She and her fiance Tim Sullivan had planned to marry in August 2016.

July 29, 2015 10:58 a.m. | It was a tough season to be Brown Deer baseball player.

The varsity finished at 4-21 and the junior varsity and freshman teams struggled to win games, but first-year coach Dave Lucre' saw signs of progress and was especially pleased with the way morale was maintained in spite of the adversity.

"The guys improved in some areas," he said.

"The errors per game were still high at the end of the season, but one thing I really liked is how we competed against good teams. All summer long, I kept telling them I appreciate them playing Brown Deer baseball."

The season recently ended for the Falcons with a WIAA regional semifinal loss to Cedarburg, a game where they scored the first two runs of the contest before faltering a bit.

July 29, 2015 10:15 a.m. | Shorewood — Does it really feel like Halloween if you are trick-or-treating during the daytime?

That question has been posed many times over the years to North Shore government officials, who are in charge of setting trick-or-treat times in the months leading up to Halloween.

Local village boards and city councils in Milwaukee County typically set their trick-or-treat times from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. the Sunday on or before Oct. 31, which was agreed upon in 2010 by a group of municipal leaders representing the county's 19 communities. If Oct. 31 falls on a Saturday - like it does this year - the regional Intergovernmental Cooperation Council's non-binding resolution allows communities to schedule trick-or-treating on the day of Halloween.

Several North Shore officials have tried to stray from the ICC's position over the years, but few have succeeded. The latest politician to poke that beehive was Shorewood trustee Tammy Bockhorst, who raised the issue at a village board meeting on July 20.

Instead of conforming to the suggested trick-or-treat hours of 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Oct. 31, Bockhorst tried to lobby her fellow trustees to push trick-or-treating a little later, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.

July 28, 2015 1:23 p.m. | Glendale — The Glendale Common Council will soon start discussing possible improvements to the city hall/police department building.

John Sabinash, of Zimmerman Architectural Studios, has identified $10.3 million in improvements for Glendale City Hall that could be phased over the next four years. City Administrator Richard Maslowski said the city will not be able to fund all of the projects in Zimmerman's needs analysis, as funding is tight and a number of capital improvement projects are scheduled over the next several years.

The council will start prioritizing the most urgent city hall improvement projects during budget discussions in August or September.

Glendale City Hall was first constructed in 1954. The police department was added in 1963, and another addition was added in 1994. Sabinash said Glendale has "a functionably reasonable building," but it is in need of some updating, like new roofing and windows on the entire building.

The consultant said the improvements could be managed in four phases - the first of which would spend $1.7 million on the city hall portion of the building. The proposal calls for a reconfiguration of city hall's office space, a remodling of the common council chambers and a 952-square-foot office addition along the front of the building, among other improvements.

July 28, 2015 11:45 a.m. | Glendale — After a week on the northwest side of Milwaukee, the much-talked-about 'Milwaukee lion' may have made an appearance in Glendale Sunday night.

The 'lion-like' creature described by more than a dozen eyewitnesses over the last week was most recently spotted on 30th Street and Fairmount Avenue on Saturday night. Milwaukee police officers have been searching the area around Lincoln Creek in search of the big cat.

The lion may be traveling northeast, if a call from Glendale police is accurate.

Glendale police received a report of a lion sighting at 11:26 p.m. Sunday in the 5700 block of Crestwood Boulevard, about a mile north of Lincoln Creek. The caller said he saw a tan muscular animal with a long tail walking in the area, and then it took off running north toward Marne Avenue.

Glendale police responded to the call, but officers were unable to locate the animal.

July 27, 2015 4:03 p.m. | Some North Shore government officials are unhappy about a provision in the new state budget that bans local municipalities from enforcing code requirements at the time of a property sale.

Shorewood, Brown Deer and Bayside are among the North Shore communities that previously required comprehensive code compliance inspections at the time a property is sold. The inspections identified electrical, plumbing and structural issues that need to be changed before the property can change hands.

The Wisconsin Realtors Association requested state legislators to eliminate those inspections, because they were seen as a hurdle to the sale of homes. The law went into effect on July 14.

The law will bring about a significant change in policy for communities like Shorewood, which has had a comprehensive time-of-sale code compliance program since 1980. Communities like Shorewood that have an older housing stock have come to rely upon home inspections at the time of sale to help ensure properties do not fall into disrepair, said Village Manager Chris Swartz.

"Most homes in Shorewood were built in the late teens through early 1930s and are rich in architectural diversity," he said. "This provision eliminates a very effective method we currently have to preserve the integrity of these buildings over the years, which is a top village priority."

July 27, 2015 3:33 p.m. | Brown Deer —The village of Brown Deer closed on the sale of the former American TV and Appliance building for $2.1 million last week.

The 119,000-square-foot building is part of a 6.6-acre lot on the north side of the property that was purchased by Pak Technologies, a blending, packing and distribution company based in Milwaukee. Pak Technologies has already started renovating the interior of the building to turn it into a distribution warehouse.

Brown Deer will provide Pak with $750,000 in assistance over the course of four years. Pak Technologies has guaranteed that the improvements to the property will generate an additional $1.4 million in assessed value. The increased tax revenue from the property will be used to reimburse the village for its contribution.

The Brown Deer Community Development Authority purchased the 10-acre lot at 6700 W. Brown Deer Road for $2.6 million in April 2014. That lot has been divided into three parcels, including a 2.2-acre lot on the southeast corner that will be sold to Aldi for $650,000. Village officials estimate the Aldi's property will be worth $2 million when the building is completed in summer 2016.

The remaining 1.2 acres of land on the southwestern portion of the property will be used for storm water management.

July 27, 2015 12:59 p.m. | Brown Deer — Brown Deer police are searching for two suspects who allegedly robbed a 61-year-old Milwaukee woman at gunpoint and stole her vehicle on Sunday, July 26.

In addition to robbing the woman and stealing her car, the two male suspects also allegedly ordered her at gunpoint to withdraw money from an ATM machine at US Bank, 4200 W. Brown Deer Road, at 5:55 p.m. Sunday.

The two suspects - who are estimated to be about 17 or 18 years old - were last seen traveling westbound on Brown Deer Road in a maroon Ford Taurus and a bronze 2013 Buick Encore, which was the woman's vehicle.

Anyone with information is encouraged to call the Brown Deer Police Department at (414) 371-2900.

July 22, 2015 1:08 p.m. | "It was the weirdest way to score a winning run that I've ever seen."

That was the reaction of Homestead baseball coach Ernie Millard after the Highlanders lost a wrenching 3-2 WIAA sectional semifinal decision to Menomonee Falls on July 20 at Cahill Park in Whitefish Bay.

The Highlanders had advanced to the sectional with a 12-2 rout of Kewaskum in the regional final on July 17 and were looking for their second straight state tournament berth.

Falls went on to defeat Grafton, 4-2, for its first state tournament berth since 2008. The Falls win was also a little bit of vengeance for a sectional semifinal defeat at the hands of the Highlanders last season.

Millard wasn't far off in his assertion about the play in the third inning that decided the Highlanders' fate.